With the development of communications technologies, a new type of network deployment, that is, a heterogeneous network Het-Net (Heterogeneous Network), is gradually introduced to a wireless network. A core of a heterogeneous network technology is that, a certain quantity of low power nodes LPNs (Low Power Node) are deployed within coverage of a macro base station, so as to increase available spectrum resources by using a cell splitting technology or a spectrum reuse technology, thereby improving a throughput of a unit geographical area.
Compared with the macro base station, an LPN has relatively low downlink total transmit power; therefore, coverage of the LPN is smaller. In the prior art, there may be two manners for deploying an LPN in a Het-Net. The first manner may be referred to as a D-PCI (different physical cell identifier) manner, where the LPN may be considered as a port that has a different cell identity ID (identity) from that of the macro base station, and the LPN has all base station characteristics. In other words, the macro base station and the LPN have their respective cell identifiers, system information, and the like; when a user equipment UE (User Equipment) moves between the macro base station and the LPN, a series of resource configuration processes, such as a handover, may be caused. The second manner may be referred to as an S-PCI (same physical cell identifier) manner, where the LPN is considered as a transmission and reception point of the macro base station, and does not have all base station characteristics. Coverage areas of the LPN and the macro base station belong to a same cell, and the LPN and the macro base station have a same cell identifier and system information. In other words, an action that a UE moves between the macro base station and the LPN is an intra-cell movement, and therefore, a resource configuration process, such as a handover, is not caused.
For the D-PCI manner, a coverage area of a macro base station and a coverage area of an LPN belong to different cells, so that a spectrum resource may be fully reused to implement cell splitting. However, for the S-PCI manner, a coverage area of a macro base station and a coverage area of an LPN belong to a same cell and have a same cell-specific reference signal, and the like, so that it is difficult to implement cell splitting to reuse a spectrum resource, and efficiency of using the spectrum resource is relatively low.